New to the GVR4 game, not to the DSM game, Doing the Rally Thing

Hey everyone,After a suggestion from another member to get on, register, login and get postin', I finally did! Long time lurker, first time poster!I bought my first dsm in 2006, it was a white 91 fwd turbo. Went the canyon carver route and eventually picked up my current dsm in 2010, a red 1992 Tsi AWD. She's currently black with silver flake and after 2 years of rallycrossing my turbo'd b13 sentra, we setup the talon for rallycross duty in 2012. Last year we traveled all over the country(we're in CO, traveled to Texas, California, Maryland, Minnisota, and all in between) specifically to race rallycross. 16k miles traveling later, we started to plan for the next year, and the wife's fateful words: "I think you need to do something more. You're outgrowing the skills of rallycross. We should move to stage rally". And so it was born:We picked up 179/2000 late last year. She was in bad shape, running on mostly 2 cylinders, stock block, 20g and some big 272 cams. She was slammed to the ground and had some ugly ugly wheels. Over the last several months we've put her on proper rally suspension, converted to 5 lug(matches all my dsm spares), swapped in a 4 bolt, currently rockin' the talon's 2.3 stroker- in NA form, added a big honkin' cage, seats, harness etc all in preparation for running stage rally. Although i really wanted #179 from Rally America, someone already had it. Going with the Mad Cheshire theme we've always rocked, we picked #725 - the 3 cards Alice first meets in the book.For those of you following the facebook page, I put up a picture from Park Expose when we were up in Rally Colorado. We finished Rally Colorado a few weeks ago and are currently repreping her for Rally Wyoming in a few weeks. Due to RA's coefficient rule, we are rockin' an NA setup currently using the talon's 2.3 stroker block. We're only getting faster and can't wait to move even more forward with this terrific car.

Thanks for all the support. I'll be planning to put up some sort of something along the lines of a build eventually, but this is the first time since that post i've gotten a chance to breath. We do rallycross in out 1g talon still and between prepping the galant, prepping the talon, working, driving, racing, i've been super busy.

Rally America recently announced they are making Open Light into a National class so we have been throwing around the idea of running the entire series next year. So I'll keep you all updated on that.

My fb profile for those interested, keep in mind i don't post a lot, but the wifey tags me a lot: click

And heres some pics from both Rally Wyoming and Rally Colorado, there are several other photogs, just gotta find them, Rupert is a super good guy and photog and he's super easy to find his pics!

Quoting turbofonz:Very very cool. I have dreams of doing rally america with one of mine, but I just stick to rallycross for the cheapness and ease of doing it.

Don't give up on those dreams. If you really want it, you'll make it happen! Rallycross is awesome! We still do it with our 1g. The first(and only time) i took the Galant out as sorta a shake down, i hit 21 cones! My gosh. Its def bigger than the 1g but still had a blast doing it.

RX helped me huge for our first rally. You learn a bunch that can be used with higher speeds. Don't think we would've wrecked but may have had to finish a stage with some bend hardware had it not been the knowledge of how to drive in the dirt because of rallycross.

It's more so the costs. I have a drag talon, I have a road race vr4, making a legal stage rally vr-4 is money. And running the events, crew etc... its pricey lol. Maybe one day. I do have a set of hotbits rally coilovers that will be great for that use, but I dont know yet.

I run in stock AWD and do very well. I've podiumed the last few I've been too. Really competitive class. I do have 4 gvr-4s and always dream of making one an all out rally car. Or at least a mod awd rallyx car

Seems like you got a lot on your plate already! We keep busy with just stage and rx. You don't always have to spend a lot at each event. Besides entry and tow costs, you can make it as expensive as you want. Unless the event has moving service, and you don't mind wrenching yourself, you really don't need crew. They set up the events so you can do it all yourself timing wise. You don't need a hotel(but i like the hot showers) and can often camp at your service pit. Bringing food rather than buying fast food/going out saves a lot as well. You don't *need* those new tires. Take offs from the top teams(usually 3 stages) are great for beginners- you won't notice the difference from freshies to used. Meh, i donno, guess I've just gotten used to the costs.

Stock awd always seems to be pretty competitive anywhere and it's awesome if you're getting on that podium. Its no small feat. Mod 4 can be very competitive depending on the region. I've seen anything from the top 10 never being predictable to the same guy always taking 1st and just smashing it. I don't think the latter is very fun because it usually just means the class is small. If you go the mod 4 route, especially nationally, be ready to put out some cash to be competitive. Have you ever got to the National Championship? Its worth the experience atleast once. We'll be going out this year as usual.